Appeal court upholds retrial order

A man acquitted of murder can be retried on the lesser charge of manslaughter, the Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday.

Nine years ago, a judge ordered Zyndall McKinney to be tried for manslaughter in the 2009 stabbing death of Anna Garrison after a jury acquitted him of murder, but failed to reach a verdict on the alternative charge of manslaughter.

McKinney’s lawyer, Murrio Ducille, filed a constitutional motion, claiming that the retrial order was an abuse of process. Then Supreme Court Justice Roy Jones dismissed the motion and set a new trial date February 17, 2014.

But Ducille appealed the decision — and his argument “that an acquittal on an indictment for the offense of murder is a bar to a second indictment for the same homicide charging it as manslaughter since a person ought not to be put twice in jeopardy for the same matter” was rejected.

In a written decision, Court of Appeal President Sir Hartman Longley said, “The argument in my judgment is misconceived.”

McKinney remains on bail. He had been tried along with Madison Pugh, Garrison’s daughter and his former girlfriend.

Jones ordered jurors to acquit Pugh in 2012 at the close of the prosecution’s after finding the evidence against the teen was too weak. She had been in custody since her extradition from Pennsylvania in May 2010.